Sky Blues Ready for Title Shot in Westfield W League

The Westfield W League semi finals will be held this weekend with favourite Sydney FC playing Canberra on Saturday.

Sydney FC captain Heather Garriock says finishing the Westfield W-League season as minor premiers is a confidence boost heading into the semi-finals this weekend against Canberra United.

“Winning the minor premiership gives us confidence going into the semis and finals. It-s definitely something we-ve worked towards all year but we haven-t finished the job yet,” said Sydney-s Captain Heather Garriock.

The Sky Blues are looking to go one better than last season where they were knocked out in the semi finals by the eventual champions Brisbane Roar.

“Our number one goal is to win the grand final, but we-re focusing on the next game - the semi final. We-re not going to focus on the grand final, that-s the next step,” said the defender.

Sydney FC holds a slight edge on their semi final opponents, having beaten the nation-s capital team 2-1 back in Round 2.

That victory was the start of Sydney-s current undefeated streak of nine games. Garriock feels this record, the second longest in the history of the Westfield W-League, is a credit to the team-s mentality.

“We focus on our own game, we-ve improved week in week out and been playing some really good football. We-re just going to continue to do that and hopefully we-ll be unstoppable.”

The Sydney FC and Canberra United fixture, the first semi-final of the 2009/10 Westfield W-League season, will take place on Saturday December 12 at Shark Park, Woolooware. Kick-off is at 3pm.

Captain Garriock is looking forward to the match being a local resident herself. “Myself and Sarah Walsh both live in Cronulla so we encourage all the fans to come down to support women-s football and Sydney. It-s a beautiful stadium and I-m sure it-ll be a beautiful day.”

The Sky Blues and Canberra were both recognised earlier this week with the Fair Play Award at the W League Awards presentation.